The planet faces a leadership crisis. The terms leadership needs to be understood anew. It must become a wider phenomenon; overturning the 80 - 20 law. For this to happen, we need to escape the conventional leadership mind traps and open ourselves to connecting the five dimensions of Aspiration, Anticipation, Agility, Ability and Authenticity.
Hello and Welcome. I am Subbu Iyer and you are tuned into the digital maturity compass podcast. Thanks for investing your time here.
The previous episodes focused on how to work with the digital maturity compass app. From here on, we will start focusing on each of the layers and dimensions of an enterprise’s digital maturity. We keep using the word digital ahead of the enterprise because every enterprise is a digital enterprise in the era of Industry 4.0.
In this episode, we are going to focus on Leadership. Conventionally, it has been understood more as an entitlement rather than an inherent human character. In the anarchical societies, the one who could oppress most became a leader. In the monarchy, leadership came by inheritance. In the early stages of democracy and its progression, a university education bestowed leadership. But as we progress into a new era, there needs to be a clear understanding that with democratized systems and societies, leadership need to be more pervasive. It cannot be an entitlement. And it is extremely critical for the current passage in time and space; to make this significant period of transformation more meaningful for the future. Because, most of the transformations in the past were bloody and that legacy carried itself into the democratic progression. Now such a progression is ready to mature and we need a clear departure from the past; where the transformation into the future is fueled by human aspiration for growth where power is distributed rather than an ambition for usurping power.
So let’s get started….and I’d like to start by sharing a Zen Story with you.
Nan-in, a Japanese Zen master during the Meiji era (1868-1912), received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen.
Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor’s cup full, and then kept on pouring. The professor watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. “It is overfull. No more will go in!”
“Like this cup,” Nan-in said, “you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?”
No matter where we live on this planet, we have to empty what we know and learn what is relevant for life. Because we have to combat our existential threats of Environmental Disaster, the potential of a nuclear war and the negative side of technology disruption while at the same time focus on creating solutions that allows Globality and a higher quality of life that addresses the aspirations of people. Bringing life applications that are digital in nature with data and computing in realtime being all pervasive, intelligent and recursive. Learning and renewing applications in nano seconds to the continuously evolving context of personalization. It must be clearly evident that the first part of combating is the overflow of legacy of massification while the second part of learning is oriented to personalizing to aspirations for the future from a growth perspective.
There are five innate dimensions that characterize Leadership:
The first one is Aspiration. The term Aspiration is not the same as Ambition. We see many leaders with the latter trait more than the former. Aspiration involves unconstrained thinking globally that causes societal growth. Ambition on the other hand is constrained in its thinking with a personal focus.
The second one is Agility. The term agility does in no way ascribe to speed. It is essentially the preparation to meet every and any eventuality with equanimity. Speed is one of the the natural outcomes that is borne out of the right training and practice.
The Third one is Anticipation. The terms anticipation perhaps draws inspiration from how ants conduct their lives. They predicate their existence to remaining alert and responding to every situation with alacrity; whether it is storing food for a rainy day or not being trampled by an elephant in the forest. It is building the foresight to thrive rather than merely survive.
The fourth one is Ability. The term ability relates to the skills required to undertake the tasks that will lead to successful outcomes. World Bank research report suggests 95% of people in enterprises need to re-skill themselves to be relevant to Industry 4.0. Therefore ability is not about what one might have learnt and repeated twenty years over but rather about being relevant to the execution requirements of an evolving enterprise.
The fifth one is Authenticity. The term authenticity is perhaps the most important leadership trait that points directly to Intellectual Integrity. Knowing what is right and doing what is right; no matter how hard or inconvenient. This is where a leader leads from the center and not from the periphery.
Let me bring some perspective from my recent engagements globally where digital transformations are underway.
A recent interesting article authored by Jennifer Garvey Berger and Zafer Gedeon Achi for the McKinsey quarterly talks about “Leader’s Identity Mindtrap”. They call it the fearsome foursome; a uniquely blended human conundrum.
We constantly seek to manage the impression others have of us—this person that we see ourselves to be—while subconsciously defending that person from harm. In service of the struggle, our brains reach out subconsciously for justification and help, often in the form of four additional mindtraps.
The first of the fearsome four is Simple stories. Our desire for simple stories blinds us to real ones. Human beings are wired for narrative. We love to tell and hear stories—around the campfire or the coffee machine. Simple and easy-to-understand stories are powerful, helping societies, religions, and cultures to form. This is great, except when things get complex enough to stop fitting into our default templates. A simple story makes us feel we know who the heroes and villains are, as well as what will happen next. But we don’t really know these things, and our desire for simple stories often leads to unhappy endings in an ambiguous and uncertain world.
The second fo the fearsome four is Rightness. Neuroscientists have shown that the feeling of certainty is actually an emotion, such as love or anger. And like those other emotional states, certainty attaches to a belief in the absence of formal reasoning. When we believe we are right, we stop listening well to others and ignore data that prove us wrong. This is not deliberate obstinacy; it is the way our brains work. Just because something feels right doesn’t mean it is.
The third fo the fearsome four is Agreement. We crave agreement and hate conflict, having evolved to orient ourselves to the opinions and desires of others as a means of survival. And when we disagree with one another, we experience a social distress that is neurologically indistinguishable from physical pain. This leads teams to fall into agreement too easily and to forego valuable options when dealing with complex challenges. In other words, seeking to get along literally robs us of good ideas.
Of course, this mindtrap also has its flip side: when we decide that we are not in the same tribe as another person, we are likely to polarize and amplify our differences—an equally unhelpful response.
The fourth of the fearsome four is Control. Our desire for control is deeply connected to our sense of happiness. A sense of control even makes us live longer, healthier lives. Yet we crave the sort of direct control over outcomes that is not possible in an unpredictable world. Our compulsion to have control leads us down the path to simplistic and ineffective solutions, often based on unilateral power.
The authors add: While we can never fully escape our mindtraps, spotting them sooner in ourselves—in part by asking questions about our own reactions—can help us better recognize the ancient instincts that serve us so poorly in a complex and unpredictable world.
This is a crisis that we need to meet head-on. Be it to solve the existential threat or potential of growth from new opportunities. Leadership must become the center of focus to the way design, transformation and innovation can become an effectively reality in enterprises. Leadership needs to understood anew; in the context and relevance of a new world that brings very different challenges and a completely new paradigm of life mostly driven by digital technology.
Thanks for listening to this episode. In the next episode, I am going to address the topic of “The Design of Design”. In the meantime, write to me with your feedback and suggestions and ideas at support@archents.com. I’d happy to support your question live over a zoom conference call and the first three hours of engaging with you will be absolutely free of charge. Of course, don’t forget to register at archents.app for the digital maturity compass app for free and start mirroring your perspectives.
Until then, this is Subbu Iyer, signing off for the Digital Maturity Compass Podcast.